Anchor

I stand corrected about the checklist feature, but the place where the pieces can be found is true.

Unfortunately not.

There are 11 pieces total, including the beam rifle and the back piece.

The helmet is under "helmets."
The face mask is under face detail 2 (where most of the other chin pieces and facial hair are)
The chest is under "robes."
The sleeves are under "sleeves."
The shoulders are under "shoulders."
The pants are under "tucked in."
The boots are under "boots."
The belt is under "belts."
The gloves are under "gloves."
The rifle will be under weapons if the toon has the beam rifle powerset.
The back piece is under back details.

For me, it ended up being a bit more expensive. I burned through about 1500 points trying to get the whole Elemental Order set unlocked. Those pesky pants didn't want to drop.

The game did, in fact, support this playstyle at launch, and it got even more solo-friendly as it progressed. Have to assemble a team to go knock out a baddie you can't handle? No, just abandon/autocomplete and move on. Run out of mission contacts from 38-40 so you have to street sweep (ugh) or team up with someone who still has missions left to do? No, just dial up your local police contact or have the contacts menu find your unused contacts and teleport you right to them. Have to grind out missions for specific salvage to build nice enhancements? No, just go to the market and buy them with the cash you earn by doing the things you normally do.

If the developers disagree with a solo playstyle, they've done a terrible job of discouraging it from levels 1 to 50. Fact is, if you can't survive solo, your teaming experience is going to suck. You have to be able to take care of yourself to play this game. You don't have to learn how to function in a team to play this game.

You had team content set aside for you since the game launched and only got more as time went on. There are hours and hours of taskforces and strikeforces with badges, accolades (with powers), and costume parts you could only get by doing them and characters and storylines only you would get to experience. On top of those things to make you feel like you've done something special, you get XP, enhancements, inspirations, salvage, and the rewards that all of the other content offered, too. You've still got all of this team-only content in the game. If that's not enough, what else do you want?

Aside from maybe their own peace of mind from playing the game their way, soloers get what "attaboys" for doing what they do that teamers cannot earn, too? Nothing, and that's just fine. It's easy to reconcile yourself to what you will lose by not doing optional teaming content. It's when what used to be optional becomes the only reasonable means of character progression at the endgame (and a good chunk of "new" content) that people start to wonder why things had to change.

The only upside is that the game doesn't require Incarnate powers to do anything but Incarnate content. The Incarnate System is such an afterthought, I don't see how that can change. The Incarnaters will raid for the privilege of raiding more while the non-Incarnates will be sitting at the level 50 wall they've been sitting at for the last five years.

(And being told, "This is the way it always was and how it has to be," and invoking proof-less "most players do such-and-such" claims when we've all got years of our own experiences in this game to draw upon is patronizing, annoying and, yes, completely inflexible.)

That's how the gorilla used to be. These days it only makes you wait until level 20 to get a regular mount and level 40 for a fast mount these days. Mounts and riding skills are also a tiny fraction of what they used to cost. As someone who got an epic land mount before the nerf, I don't miss the old gold grind.

The leaping seems a touch over the top.

I blame Google!

You should have seen the other things that came up when looking for "The A-Hole"...

He used to do some very funny scripted dialogue next to Paragon City's payphones.

http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Ascendant-O%27s

You did not diffuse that bomb simultaneously with the three other bombs to diffuse (to be diffused by three of your teammates), so you will have to diffuse it again.

You see a company designing a system to be deliberately obtuse so it can manipulate players.

I see a company who kicked around the Cathedral of Pain trial for just shy of four years because they couldn't figure out how to code it so players couldn't exploit the trial; a company that apparently didn't foresee the potential for abuse by players in its mission creator system; a company that didn't think the playerbase would be upset with the initial Circle of Thorns revamp being a major departure from existing models.

You see shady. I see the usual level of planning and forethought.

Ditto. Fits my "boy genius inventor" hero to a T.

NOICE. Thanks!

Not sure how this would work if all of the toons are on the same account. The game seems to be pretty picky about not logging in an account it thinks is already running.

Level cap raises, new abilities/doodads/sparklies, and additional levels of high-level mission-based content and zones *plus* raids/trials for those who want to run those types of things with more doodads/sparklies tied to that system.

That's how the game with the night elves does it and it works for the most part. Everybody gets something new to do with their high-level toons. Nice, non-repetitive content with new places to go, new things to see, new skills to learn, new gear to acquire, new achievements to earn, etc. As it is an explicitly raid-centric endgame and has been since day one, non-raiders will eventually end up twiddling their thumbs when they run out of things to do. Still, the amount of progression non-raiders can make on their own is enough to prepare them for the next expansion/level cap raising.

Paragon did all of the "new" stuff above with Going Rogue. They just chose to tack most of the Praetoria experience on to the beginning of the game instead of the end.

Well, somebody better tell Maria Jenkins that.